SMBC pinched BNP Paribas' top fixed income guy. It took a while

It has finally happened. Kunal Maini is at SMBC. Bloomberg reported this morning that he arrived. Sources tell us he actually turned up yesterday.

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Maini spent the past four years at BNP Paribas, where he was a managing director and head of fixed income currencies and commodities (FICC) trading for the Americas. He was first rumoured to be leaving BNP Paribas for SMBC three months ago in early April. 

At that time, however, both BNP and SMBC declined to comment. There were unconfirmed suggestions that he was staying at BNP Paribas to tie up loose ends. These remain unconfirmed.

BNP declined to comment on who will be leading Americas FICC trading now. At SMBC, Maini will be deputy co-head of global markets and head of international macro rates. 

SMBC already has a deputy co-head of global markets in the form of Steven Feinberg who arrived amidst a flurry of hiring in 2022. However, Feinberg is focused on credit rather than macro trading.  

Maini, who also once worked for Morgan Stanley, will report to Masahito Nonaka, who runs global markets for the Americas. Nonaka has worked for SMBC in Tokyo since the distant days of 1993 and arrived at SMBC in New York in 2020. 

Maini didn't respond to a request to comment for this article. SMBC said he will be helping with its "medium term management plan."

SMBC has been building out its macro business. In April, it hired Shrikar Shah from Morgan Stanley to run interest rates structured trading. It also hired Gagan Sobti from BofA to run all macro rates trading. Shah and Maini know each other from MS.

BNP hired Kavi Gupta from Jain Global in July to replace Maini. 

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